Paramount on Monday announced it has commenced an all-cash tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Warner Bros. Discovery for $30 per share, an operation it says equates to an enterprise value of $108.4 billion. The aggressive although not wholly unexpected move is an attempt to pry Warner Bros. out of the arms of Netflix.
“The Paramount offer for the entirety of WBD provides shareholders $18 billion more in cash than the Netflix consideration. WBD’s Board of Directors recommendation of the Netflix transaction over Paramount’s offer is based on an illusory prospective valuation of Global Networks that is unsupported by the business fundamentals,” the company said this morning.
